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St. Catharines is getting noticed, Mayor Walter Sendzik told almost 500 business and community leaders Friday.

Delivering his second State of the City address to a full house at Club Roma, Sendzik highlighted progress the city has made over the last year.

It’s progress, he told them, that’s attracting the attention of people outside Niagara.

“Too often we sit in our little clusters, our little silos, and we think we’re still falling behind,” he said.

“We are catching up now. We’re getting noticed.”

One of the greatest highlights of 2015, Sendzik said, was the opening of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre and Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

He said it’s getting noticed because the city is celebrating and investing in culture and creating a cluster of culture in the community.

The buildings and what they mean have attracted the attention of national publications like Canadian Architecture, the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.

“I can’t tell you how many people have come from away into our community and they can’t believe what those buildings look like,” Sendzik said. “It leaves us with an immense sense of pride.

“Pride’s been missing for a while in our community. We have it back. We have pride back.”

Sendzik said businesses being incubated out of Innovate Niagara, Brock University’s BioLinc and Niagara College’s research centre are also attracting attention from business communities outside of Niagara.

Buffalo Business First publication, for instance, has highlighted Innovate Niagara and the work being done there.

“Those are key critical areas in which we are attracting attention and that’s what’s being noticed,” he said.

Sendzik said the city is continuing to attract investors and see local companies invest and grow in their businesses. The city issued $93 million in total permits last year, $5 million of which in manufacturing and $55 million in residential.

He pointed to several projects in the city currently underway, from Ikea’s move to Fairview Mall to the wind tower partnership between Rankin Construction and Enercon Canada at Port Weller to Penn Terra’s student apartment builds downtown.

“When my kids walk downtown with me and they see the cranes, that means growth to them,” Sendzik said. “That means people are investing n the community. that means people are going to come to the downtown to live.”

Sendzik’s 40 minute address touched on everything from the new St. Catharines Strategic Plan to the city’s hosting of PanAm Games rowing. He also asked everyone in attendance to give a St. Catharines welcome to a refugee family in the audience who arrived in June and were invited to the event.

He spoke about his vision for city, customer care at city hall and the compassionate city model, which encourages everyone to be conscious of other’s distress and act to alleviate it.

Sendzik told those gathered that they’re all in it together to make the city number one. He can’t do it alone and council can’t either. Everyone can push aside the pettiness and negativity that keeps the city back and embrace the positive side of the equation, he said.

“It’s just the start of something. You need to be the ambassadors. You need to be the champions. You need to be the cheerleaders of where we want to go.”